Expanding Box: Cloud service provider courts small businesses with 10GB of free storage

Box is on fire these days. Just after announcing plans to bring cloud tools to tricky areas such as health and education, the firm’s now making a concerted push to attract small and medium-sized businesses.

The cloud storage startup announced on its blog that it will begin offering a new starter plan for $5 a month per person, for up to 10 people, that grants 100 GB of cloud-based file storage. The best bit? Anyone can get 10GB for free.

Box cofounder and CEO Aaron Levie calls this the “biggest change we’ve made to our offering since 2010.”

Above: Information about the new pricing models.

This news also marks a turning point in how Box is perceived by customers and the press.

For years, Box executives have stressed its appeal with large enterprises, like Proctor & Gamble, EA, or NBC Sports. Just a few months ago, chief operating officer Dan Levin told me that Box offers “security and control,” which makes it an ideal choice for any corporate giant.

Editor’s note: Want to learn more about how companies Box and Dropbox are shaking up the enterprise? Our upcoming CloudBeat conference, Sept. 9-Sept. 10 in San Francisco, will be tackling revolutionary cases of enterprise cloud usage, including how companies are embracing these upstarts. Register today!

Meanwhile, chief rival Dropbox is focused on consumers and is about “sharing stuff with your cousin,” said Levin.

With this announcement, Box is deliberately moving into Dropbox and Google Drive territory — and is playing both sides. The company hopes to hold on to its enterprise customers and reach a new base of consumers and SMBs.

Levie estimates the SMB market alone to be worth $1 trillion.

“We want to help big businesses be as nimble as small ones and small businesses be as scalable and global as giants,” said Levie in a blog post.

In related news, the company has also agreed to a distribution deal with AT&T to offer its service to its enterprise customers.